No One Deserves You
by ShadowWeasel
Summary: I want to tell her.


My cellphone rings and drags me from the darkness of my sleep and into the white light of the glass screen staring at me from my desk. It's pitch-black outside my window, but her picture smiles at me from the artificial glow and I force myself out of bed.

I clamor for the phone before it can ring again, but it shrills once more and I curse and punch the button on my desk lamp before I finally pick up the device and answer. "Hello?" I grumble in a blend of frustration and exhaustion.

There's a sniffle on the other end of the phone.

"Shadow?"

I blink wearily and feel my heart ache inside my chest. I pinch the bridge of my nose and rub my eyelids with my forefingers as I sit down and lean on the desktop. "Yeah. What do you want?"

I hear her pull away from the receiver and wipe her nose on her sleeve before she speaks again.

"Listen… I… um…"

I know what she wants, but I respect her too much to finish her thoughts for her. So I wait for a painful five seconds as she chokes on her words and bites her lip. Then she finally says it.

"I need a ride."

I don't ask. That's the last thing she wants from me right now. I'm grabbing my jacket off of the back of my chair as I speak to her through the phone. "Alright. I'll be a minute. Are you keeping warm?"

"I'm not a child, Shadow."

Her natural venom stings through her tears, and I'm grateful for it. I don't ask where she is, because I already know, and I also know that she wouldn't want to tell me if I asked. I'm on my way out the door, but I make a point to ask her again. "I know that. But it's cold out. You're at least wearing a coat, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm wearing a coat. Just pick me up already."

I decide to trust her and lock the door behind me before making my way out to my car. "Alright. I'll be there in five minutes."

I turn the key in the ignition and the engine roars to life as she whispers goodbye, but I'm still able to hear her say, "Thanks." Then she hangs up and I'm driving down the road to that nice restaurant she was bragging about going to earlier today.

* * *

I find her standing outside of the restaurant without a coat on when I finally pull up to the sidewalk where she's waiting. Her eyes are blue like the night sky and sparkling with fresh tears, and the violet eyeshadow I helped her pick out before she left is bleeding down her face in blackish trails like scars. She pops open the passenger-side door and slides in. She refuses to look me in the eye even though I watch her as she enters.

Rouge the bat says nothing and only stares at the dashboard for a long time as I sit there with the car idling.

I finally ask. "Want to tell me what happened?"

She blinks but gives away nothing. She's the strongest woman I've ever met and I admire her stubbornness.

So I drop it and pretend to notice her bare arms for the first time. "Where's your coat?"

She turns her head and faces the window with a wet scoff that sounds more like a sob. "God, Shadow, can you just drive?"

"Is it inside?"

"Shadow, I really don't care about-…"

"But I do. Is it inside?"

"Yes, _yes_ , it's inside! But-…"

"But what?"

She turns and looks at me with azure fire glowing in her eyes like icy gasflame. Tears stream down her cheeks and she glares at my skull like she wants it to explode. I sit perfectly still and don't say a word as she finally chokes out, "But I'm _not_ going back in there! Okay? Happy? I'm not going back. So just shut up, please, and just take me home…"

I'm not listening as I unbuckle my seatbelt and crack open the door. The brisk wind hits me like a cold splash of water as I step outside. "I'll be right back," I tell her as I shut the car and walk towards the entrance of the building.

She curses me hoarsely from inside the vehicle as I march inside.

* * *

The man at the front desk asks me for my name or reservation number, but I ignore him and tell him I lost something inside. I walk into a dining room filled with candlelit tables and wine glasses that sparkle in the amber glow, and I locate Rouge's favorite leather jacket resting on the back of a chair. I weave between tables and disregard the stares from uptight, upper-class diners as I scoop her coat up off of the seat.

"You her boyfriend?"

I look up from her jacket and see the man she had been telling me all about this morning, the guy who was really different this time, with kind, beautiful eyes like emeralds and blonde quills like a supermodel. He really cared, she had told me as she showed me the picture on her phone. He was such a sweetheart. So… different.

I hadn't been fooled for a second. Now I was staring at him from across the table, his toxic, sewage-green gaze burning into mine, his greasy, piss-yellow quills hanging in his face. I blink at him and refuse my reflexive urge to wrap my hands around his throat.

"No," I tell him, then think to add, "I thought you were."

He chuckles a sharp, awful noise like he's disgusted. " _Ex_ ," he stresses as he pulls a cigarette from his suit jacket. He lights up and takes a drag. "Dumb bitch," he muttered through the smoke as he exhaled.

The rage flashes white-hot in my veins and my muscles tense in anticipation. I fight it back down and resort to strangling Rouge's jacket in my hands. I make myself turn around and I try my best not to look back as I walk for the exit.

"Hey, and tell her she owes me. I'm not paying for this."

I freeze up and my legs lock into place.

"Got that, buddy?"

He doesn't see my fist coming as it drives into his nose and knocks the cigar out of his mouth.

* * *

I leave with blood on my knuckles and Rouge's coat in my hands, and I offer it back to her when I get back into the driver's seat. "Here," I say.

She doesn't look at me as she takes it from my grasp.

I drive and don't say anything for a long time. The jet-black road passes beneath us like oil and the starlight suffocates beneath the shroud of a dark wave of clouds.

We're halfway to her house when she finally speaks again.

"Shadow."

"Yeah."

"I… I need you to do something for me."

"I'm driving, Rouge."

"Well, stop driving."

I do as she commands and pull us over onto the side of the road, the hazards blinking scarlet in the darkness behind us. I return my eyes to her defeated form and see her openly crying. I don't say anything.

"Can you…" she sniffs reluctantly and wipes her eyes with the palm of one of her hands. "Um… can you…?"

Now it's okay to act. "Yeah," I tell her as I lean over to her seat and wrap my arms around her shivering figure. She immediately chokes out a heartwrenching sob that breaks me in half, but I hold back my emotions and only draw her closer into my embrace.

"I'm not stupid."

"I know you're not."

"I'm not a whore."

"I know you're not, I _know_ you're not."

Rouge the bat weeps softly into my shoulder and I sit there and let her. You're beautiful, I want to say to her then. You're the smartest girl I've ever met. No one deserves you. You're too amazing for words.

But I can only say, "It's going to be okay." And I hug her tighter and listen to her cry.


End file.
